Are They Real Sharks?

A reader wishes to know if this picture of sharks swimming around the flooded lobby of this building is on the level.

The short answer is–oh, c’mon! Of course not. It’s a moderately famous fake.

But the long answer is much more interesting.

In the summer of 2008, Eegah Bros. Department Store in Bosh Beach, NJ, faced imminent bankruptcy. The store managers needed a gimmick to bring in customers. They had just endured a month of July that saw them have no customers at all.

The solution was to flood the ground floor of the store, move all the goods to the second floor, and stock the water with colorful and exciting fish. Naturally, the novelty of it all attracted crowds.

Imagine the brothers’ horror when customers started getting picked off by sharks. Somehow several man-eating bull sharks got in with the nice parrotfish and sea horses and before anyone knew it, they’d devoured 18 shoppers. Another seven were to be attacked and eaten before an alert customer snapped this picture from higher up on the escalator. The management had no alternative but to close down the store and call in a certain Captain Quint to remove the sharks.

There is not the slightest evidence that this long answer is in any way true.